Dynamo join Unicaja at top

Lazaros Papadopoulos began the first quarter in superb fashion for Dynamo, firing 11 points by its conclusion. The centre's hook shot proved especially difficult for Unicaja to deal with.

With a four-point lead after those first ten minutes, Dynamo set about making the most of the opportunity and racked up a 16-point advantage by the half-time interval. Taquan Dean and Antonis Fotsis - who put away a pair of immaculate triples- mucked in with points alongside Papadopoulos.

The Malaga-based team - unbeaten in the Top 16 so far - were quick to respond. They ran up a 21-2 passage of play at one point in the third quarter to blitz their opponents. Berni Rodriguez took 22 points overall to lead the scoring and was helped by Jiri Welsch's enterprising offense and Marko Tusek, who put away free throws and a three-pointer to finally level the scores at 65 apiece.

Bojan Popovic sank 21 points for the home team on the night with a 100 percent three-point record and he was instrumental as Dynamo recovered their defense in the final quarter to regain control. There were few points scored towards the end, Dean, Bojan Popovic and Fotsis sinking shots from outside the arc to ram home a slender lead for Dynamo.

The win was made certain by point guard Eddie Gill from the free-throw line.

Polish outfit Sopot held the early lead but were eventually undone by the strength of Greek opposition Panathinaikos, who now lead Top 16 Group F.

The first quarter was tight, edged 17-16 by the visitors as Sopot showed why they have deserved their run to the Top 16. Their fans were even more ecstatic when Donatas Slanina and Michael Andersen helped them into six-point lead halfway through the match.

Nikolaos Chatzivrettas was a constant danger from three-point range for Panathinaikos though and eased his team back into the lead in the third period. When he stepped back a little Sani Becirovic took the reigns and eventually outscored his team-mate by 18 points to 14.

They all went to the Panathinaikos cause of course and Sopot could not make up the gap. Finally Slanina had 15 points while Andersen took 12 with a 100 percent record - although he did not try any shots from downtown.

In Group D, TAU Ceramica were simply too good for Italians Roma. Led by Serkan Erdogan they took the win by a huge margin of 99-56 in Spain.

Missing injured guard Igor Rakocevic, TAU wasted no time tearing into Roma, building a 26-13 score-line after ten minutes. Erdogan sank consecutive three-point shots to help it to 19-10 before an exquisite passage of play between Sergi Vidal and Luis Scola ended with the latter slamming home a dunk after Vidal has spun a reverse pass into his arms.

In the second quarter it became apparent that Roma simply could not sink their shots from anywhere on the court, especially when compared with the sort of percentages displayed by the Spanish giants.

Erdogan's triples kept on coming and by the last part of the match, Roma were reduced to fouling. There were countless free-throws, enabling Tiago Splitter to reach 18 points with a six out of seven ratio from the line, the second-highest total behind the mercurial Erdogan's 24.

If there was anything to aim for, it was to stop the hosts reaching 100 points and they managed that - despite Vidal holeing three straight free-throws at the death.